The End of the Line for Google Nexus Devices?

No one's suggesting Google's going to end its practise of releasing a reference phone or two late in each year, but in future they might not be branded as Nexus phones. They might be Google phones. Android phones. Alphabet phones.

We're expecting two Nexus-like devices to appear later this year from HTC, although current rumour says they won't be released under the Nexus banner. Android Central says its sources are people familiar with Google's plans, who say that the Nexus brand -- which has featured hardware manufactured by Samsung, LG, HTC and Huawei -- is set to be replaced by a more prominent focus on the Google name. Which is something Google did in the early days of Android, as there's an HTC Magic in my sock drawer that has "with Google" branding on the back of it.

The sources also claim that this year's non-Nexus Nexus phones will bin the pure/vanilla Android approach and may include some posh optional extras atop their versions of the Nougat OS, as Google tries to pitch the phones as enhanced or somehow more feature-packed than the plain Android models. Although given that unskinned Android is exactly why a large number of people love the Nexus series, that's quite the odd manoeuvre. [Android Central]